To Be There Was the Thing
by SineTimore
Summary: a filler set during ep 01x01, Flowers for Your Grave, involving Castle & Martha. *one-shot*


**Disclaimer: **I do not claim any ownership of these characters, mostly because I don't want to pay an attorney.

**AN:** This month marks my one year anniversary with and of writing my first fic ever. This story is to commemorate those milestones and, as such, it felt right to go back to the beginning- where Castle first started. I may not be the most popular, most read, or most powerful Castle writer out there, but I do consider myself to be the most grateful. Thank you all for your continued support, with love. Finally, thanks to author Joseph Wambaugh whose words I read this past week. I knew instantly that they had to serve as both my title and my story inspiration.

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_**To Be There Was the Thing**_

He sashayed through the loft door that evening as if delivered there by cloud, a look on his face not even the foremost expert on Richard Castle, aka his mother, could place. She put the finishing touches on her second martini as he moved trance-like towards the kitchen, pulled back a stool and dropped down onto it with a contented and audible sigh. He sat for a long moment, fiddling with the keys in his pocket and spinning his phone around on the counter in front of him. "Hello, Mother," he uttered finally, his mind clearly elsewhere.

"Richard," she acknowledged in bewildered tone, as she studied his curious demeanor. "And just whose canary did you swallow today, dear boy?" she asked, fluttering around the counter, the colorless drink in her hand offset by the outlandishly loud orange, green and pink hues of her ensemble.

"I solved the case today," he grinned with palpable self-satisfaction. The loud and immediate cough that followed caused him to jump in surprise, her shaken-but-not-stirred concoction having travelled down the wrong pipe in reaction to his declaration. He removed the cold glass from her hand and helped himself to a sample before setting it down to assess the extent of the damage. "Are you alright, Mother? Your drink really doesn't seem that strong," he asserted with confusion.

She held her hand up in request of a moment to compose herself, her cough quickly replaced by continued efforts to clear the remaining liquid from its unwelcome resting place. "My drink, Richard, is perfect," she croaked. "My mixology skills are, as you well know, beyond reproach. No, no, I believe that what I choked on was your choice of pronoun."

"My-"

"_You_ solved the case today?" she asked incredulously, the martini glass once again sweating in her grasp.

His face rivaled hers in its state of disbelief, his mouth open, his brow furrowed. "Wow, Mother, thank you for your overwhelming confidence," he hissed sarcastically. He rose from the stool and moved into the kitchen to prepare his own drink, which he suddenly found himself in desperate need of since his case-closed buzz had been so abruptly extinguished. "I've written nearly two dozen mystery novels," he snarled, as the ice cubes hit his empty glass with a clank, "and you don't think _I_ can solve a case for the NYPD?" The first sip of Macallan 18 went down with a bite, much like his mother's words.

"Oh please, stop the pity party for one and tell me what happened already," she demanded with second drink impatience.

"Fine, I'll tell you," he conceded without hesitation because he was absolutely dying to share the story with someone, "but please remind me to call next time before I come home. You get not very nice when you drink, Mother." He cringed at his own lack of descriptive flair and downed another sip of scotch. His body tingled again with excitement.

**XXX**

"…so I elbowed him right in the face and he went down like a pile of bricks and we cuffed him!" he squealed, like a child who just came down the stairs on Christmas morning. "I'm telling you, Mother," he stopped briefly to catch his breath, "we were incredible. You should have seen us."

Her ear-to-ear grin unnerved him. After the story he just told, her mouth should've been hanging open, her eyes as big as the moon. Instead, all she did was stare at him and chuckle. "Well, you know how I hate to assume, Mother, but I'm going attribute your current Joker-like resemblance to tonight's booze intake."

She slid forward in her seat and, in doing so, she now sat nearly knee to knee with her son. "Do you realize, kiddo, that you told me most of that entire story as a _We_ and not as an _I_?"

"I…I guess I didn't even-" he paused to try and remember everything he'd just told her. He could barely think straight, his mind racing with thoughts of the entire experience, with how surprised he felt in his reactions, with how surprised he felt to feel surprise again after so long.

"So, this Detective Beckett sounds like quite a woman," she observed with an injection of motherly prodding, "and she's beautiful to boot." She wasn't even aiming for subtlety with that addendum.

"God, she smells incredible too," he blurted without intention of sharing. "But, that's-" he stammered.

"Uh huh," she nodded with more curiosity than agreement. "So," she started before rising to refresh her cocktail for the third time, "are you going to be seeing the good detective again?" Her dress flowed behind her in an explosion of color that he couldn't pull his eye from. No need for another round for him, he thought. "I mean, it sounds like the two of you make a great team."

It did sound like that. It did feel like that. It did.

"Yes, now if I could just shave off a few years, survive the Police Academy, rise in the ranks to detective, and get myself assigned to her division all before her retirement, we'd be in business." He might just cry about it if he wasn't so busy now thinking about how the hell to make it happen. "Mother," he yelled after her, "I'll be in the office if you need me- you know, if you need help making it up the stairs or something," he teased.

"You must get that sense of humor from your father," she retorted, as he disappeared behind closed door.

**XXX**

Aside from the glow of his laptop screen, the dim light of one bulb was the room's only source of illumination. His mother had long since retired for the evening and his daughter's visits had stopped over an hour ago. His fingers worked feverishly against the keyboard, the words assaulting his brain in a relentless barrage; one that he surrendered to without question or hesitation.

His first glance at the clock came at 3:43am. His eyes blurry and stinging from the late hour, the intensity of his focus, or perhaps both, he set the whirring machine down on the desk and forced his body upright with a groan. The cracks and aches that resulted felt like rewards, mementos of a triumph. He extinguished the lamp with a pull of the chord, took one large deep breath in the darkness, and moved to his bedroom for sleep.

**XXX**

He woke too few hours later with surprising alertness. He brushed his teeth twice as long as usual, having skipped it entirely before he'd fallen into his bed. It was in those moments, as he watched himself in the mirror, his mind somehow more clear than it had right to be, that he knew everything had changed. He splashed cold water on his face, nodded once at his reflection, and went looking for his phone.

Fifty-six minutes later- he was keeping track- he answered on the first ring. "Denise, thank you for returning my call. Does he have a few minutes for me this morning? It's important." His heart beat faster every second that he waited on hold.

"I'm putting you through right now, Rick," she said. "You're lucky you caught him. He's in meetings all day today."

"I do kind of feel like my luck is changing, Denise. Thanks again."

"Hey, Ricky!" exclaimed the mayor. "What, do I owe you poker money or something? It's a bit early for a collection call, don't you think?" he joked.

"Come to think of it, Big Cheese, you do owe me from last game but I'd be willing to call it even if you'd do me a tremendous favor."

"And that would be…"

"I need your help with my new book." It had come out just like that, entirely matter of fact – his new book.

Yes, everything was about to change.


End file.
